Professor Andrew Orr-Ewing

Photochemistry, Spectroscopy and Reaction Dynamics

The research in my group uses several different types of lasers (including nanosecond and femtosecond pulsed lasers, and mid infra-red cw lasers) to study chemical reactivity, atmospheric chemistry, methods of trace gas detection, optical properties of aerosol particles, and molecular spectroscopy and photochemistry. We use ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy to study chemical reaction dynamics in liquids, velocity map imaging to explore quantum-state resolved reactive scattering in the gas phase, and cavity enhanced spectroscopy methods for a variety of applications in atmospheric chemistry and aerosol science. In addition, we use computational methods such as ab initio electronic structure theory and molecular dynamics to aid the interpretation of experimental measurements. I was the lead investigator on the ERC Advanced Grant CAPRI (Chemical and Photochemical Dynamics of Reactions in Solution, 2012-2017) and my group is part of the EPSRC-funded Bristol - Oxford Programme Grant Chemical Applications of Velocity and Spatial Imaging. We also collaborate with Bristol colleagues Prof Mike Ashfold, Prof Jonathan Reid, Prof Dudley Shallcross, Prof Fred Manby and Dr David Glowacki on various of the above research projects.

Our recent studies of reaction dynamics on ultrafast timescales in liquid solutions were published in Science in 2011. The cover picture shows reaction of CN radicals with cyclohexane in solution in dichloromethane. Theoretical insights from this work were published in 2011 in Nature Chemistry and also featured on the cover. A paper on F-atom reactions in solution appeared in Science in 2015.